Stroke Awareness Oregon Partners with Central Oregon Community College to Offer Lifesaving Stroke 101 Training as Community Education

< Back to News

Bend, OR – August 29, 2024 – Stroke Awareness Oregon (SAO) is proud to announce a new partnership with Central Oregon Community College (COCC) to offer “Stroke 101: Awareness & Prevention” as a community education course. This collaboration aims to enhance community awareness and education on stroke prevention, identification, and response, making life-saving knowledge more accessible to Central Oregon residents.

About the Course: “Stroke 101: Awareness & Prevention” is a one-hour session designed to educate participants about the different types of strokes, how to recognize the early signs, and the critical actions to take in the event of a stroke. The course will cover essential topics such as:

  • Causes and risk factors for stroke
  • The BEFAST method for stroke identification
  • Prevention strategies to reduce stroke risk
  • Recovery and support resources for stroke survivors and their families

This training, a cornerstone of SAO’s outreach efforts, will now be available to the broader community through COCC’s continuing education program, providing an opportunity for individuals, healthcare professionals, and caregivers to gain valuable insights and skills.

A New Chapter in Community Health: The partnership with COCC marks a significant step forward in SAO’s mission to eliminate disability and death from stroke. By integrating the “Stroke 101” course into COCC’s curriculum, SAO can reach a wider audience, including students, professionals, and community members who may not have had previous access to such critical information.

Stephanie Goetsch,Director Community Education, is excited about the collaboration.. “COCC Community Education is thrilled to partner with Stroke Awareness Oregon. This meets our mission to partner with community organizations and help educate the community on their important message. This partnership allows Stroke Awareness Oregon to reach a wider audience, while COCC Community Education continues to offer personal enrichment opportunities to nurture and grow community interests, regardless of  age, background, or experience level. Stroke 101: Awareness & Prevention is free to the community, and open for registration, with opportunities to attend on our Bend and Redmond campuses this fall.”

Enrollment Information: The “Stroke 101” course will be available through COCC’s community education program starting this fall. Interested individuals can register for the course through the COCC website or contact the college’s community education department for more information.

About Stroke Awareness Oregon: Stroke Awareness Oregon(a local nonprofit) exists to minimize death and disability from stroke through prevention education and to support the best life possible for stroke warriors and their loved ones.

For more information about Stroke Awareness Oregon contact 541 323-5641 or www.strokeawarenessoregon.org.

 

Become a STROKE CHAMPION for only $18 per month!

JOIN TODAY

Story Preview | A DRIVING FORCE – Alesha Goodman

by Jake Sheaffer

“I once threw a canister of my supplement powder at the wall and dented it. That’s something I can’t imagine ever doing before my stroke, but it’s just another part
of my recovery to work on.”

______________________________

On an early October weekend in 2019, Alesha Goodman and her longtime boyfriend Drew hiked over 50 miles of rugged desert landscape in the Ochoco National Forest in Central Oregon. They were on a nine-day hunting trip they’d been planning for months. While Drew streaked up the steep slopes of sagebrush and loose rock, Alesha tarried behind breathing heavily, fighting the searing pain radiating from the base of her skull. An active thirty-four-year-old who frequented local gyms, walked her dog daily, and hiked on weekends, Alesha never suspected the severe neck pain and nausea she’d had for the past week and a half were signs of an impending stroke. And not just one stroke, but two. Two potentially fatal strokes that would occur within an hour of each other the day after she returned from the Ochocos.

An only child, Alesha was close to her parents and her grandmother who lived on her parents’ property later in life. As a kid, she delivered newspapers in her Bend, OR neighborhood, and in her spare time, she wrote children’s books for fun and read voraciously, prompting close friends to refer to her as a “living encyclopedia of odd information.”

On the Monday morning after she got home, Alesha sat in traffic at a parkway off -ramp, still in discomfort from the neck pain and the nausea. She had new symptoms, too, dizziness and feeling faint. Regardless of the pain, she readied herself for work, but she had an uneasy feeling about her job.

Over the weekend, Alesha had received multiple text messages from her employer, a jewelry company in Central Oregon, about an issue with her company email and password, but with no cell reception, she couldn’t respond to her manager’s concerns. After searching through Alesha’s desk for her email password and not finding it, but instead finding an important legal document she’d already dealt with but had not yet disclosed to her boss, the company hired a specialist to get around the digital safeguards. That day, Alesha was let go from her position.

Purchase the Book to Learn More About Alesha’s Journey!